TEAM CUC: What does your CUC team (clean up crew) look like and who's your MVP?

[GobyGuy]

I really like the weird little cleaners that are often not for sale with all the snails and crabs - such as limpets, chitons, stomatella, worms, etc - they get in all the tight places and I feel the 'clean up power' per 'lb' is unmatched

those dudes look like what make a reef a "reef" are tehy reef safe

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Why would I research little crustaceans my fish eat? Lol! Read a book about reefing instead of the internet.
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Cerith snails. Nerite. Top crown snails all seem to do a good job and live long. Pencil urchins are the hardiest and best urchin. Longspines are good but but it's like having a spike covered soccer ball in your tank.
D

 

[Mr Cypher]

What no love for the sea cucumbers lol love mine dude is a work horse!! Also have a sand sifting star a harlequin serpent star tiger conch and 20+ tronchus snails 2 fire shrimp and 10 to 12 nasarius snails not many hermits left at this point

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Brittle stars and sea serpents and shrimp are great food leftover cleaner upers
D

 

[tweeter]

I really like the weird little cleaners that are often not for sale with all the snails and crabs - such as limpets, chitons, stomatella, worms, etc - they get in all the tight places and I feel the 'clean up power' per 'lb' is unmatched

(not my image)

Me to! I once got the most beautiful black and blue one that just appeared one day!! I missed him when he was gone!

 

[Kristopher Conlin]

I have an large assortment of snails and a small handful of hermits in each tank from reefcleaners. I have also been lucky with picking up limpets and stomatellas to supplement for free!


From my experience the best sand cleaners I currently have are my dwarf ceriths. I probably have about 100 or so in each tank and they do great work. For the rock cleaning astraea and trochus snails are my favorites. They can make rock look super clean.

 

[design.maddie]

The only thing I am missing right now is a Serpent Star.

 

[kevgib67]

Snails, hermits, emerald crab, conch, shrimp, pods, micro brittle starfish but the tuxedo urchin takes the top spot at MVP!

 

[Fishy888]

I really like the weird little cleaners that are often not for sale with all the snails and crabs - such as limpets, chitons, stomatella, worms, etc - they get in all the tight places and I feel the 'clean up power' per 'lb' is unmatched

(not my image)

I would love some chitons and stomatellas.

 

[Fishy888]

What no love for the sea cucumbers lol love mine dude is a work horse!! Also have a sand sifting star a harlequin serpent star tiger conch and 20+ tronchus snails 2 fire shrimp and 10 to 12 nasarius snails not many hermits left at this point

I like cucumbers but if they lay eggs your tank is toast.

 

[GillMeister]

I'm happy to see pods are on the majority of peoples lists. They might be the most important, if not most visible part of the cleanup crew.

 

[Fishy888]

Why would I research little crustaceans my fish eat? Lol! Read a book about reefing instead of the internet.
D

Pods ara CUC champions. I was intentionally keeping a large population of them. My sump developed tons of algae on the glass. About a month later it was all gone. Not only in the sump either. They ate so much algae that I was worried that my dino issue would return at the time. I am not as worried now since I have my n and p higher. I am trying to get them to bloom again. Eventually I want to get a breeding pair of royal grammas and a mandarin so I need tons for them and to sustain the pod population.

 

[encrustingacro]

I have a few trochus and astraea (lithopoma) snails, and a tiger/strawberry conch as my main cleanup crew. For some reason, I can't keep nassarius snails for very long.

 

[Scottrshoe]

My snails hang out here so much that my blenny has taken to perching on them...best seat in the house, apparently.

 

[Miami Reef]

Snails for algae, copepods for general maintenance, cleaner shrimp for fish flukes (they completely cleaned 3 heavily infested pyramid butterfly fish), and the most important member…me!

 

[Wrassefan78]

I haven’t been able to get a clean crew shipped to me yet because of the temps. Lol

 

[Jedi1199]

Why would I research little crustaceans my fish eat? Lol! Read a book about reefing instead of the internet.
D

Because you are completely off base.

What do pods eat? They eat algae at a microscopic level. If you have a large enough supply of pods, you may never even see algae outbreaks large enough for the fish and snails to eat.

The fact that they become food for the fish eventually is a bonus!

 

[Chasmodes]

Happy Monday Reef Fam! This week we're going to be discussing CLEAN UP CREWS or CUC to keep it short! 100% of us have some type of CUC whether it is a group of inverts that are housed specifically to keep the dissolving organics clean (eat poop) or it's a pretty fish that just so happens to love the taste of unsightly algae! Let's talk CUC!

1. What cleaner inverts, cleaner fish and micro cleaners do you have "on the team" in your reef aquarium? Please list them!

Hermit crab, mud crabs, grass shrimp, mud snails, and barnacles, oysters and mussels ("other" for water filtering abilities).

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

We never had a pod shortage 10 years ago. Why would we know? O maybe cause all the rock is artifical now.
Not porous.
Get pod houses or pod breeders.
Do I think a small little bug multiplied in the 1000s or even millions will keep my tank clean? No I do not. That is hogwash imo. Lol.
Maybe I'm just old school and the old school people have a hard time adopting the new ways and vise versa but again I don't buy it sorry. If your relying on bugs to clean your reef than more power to you. I do not.
D